The Oilers have six keepers, eight OK, and ten struggling positional players

Neilson numbers point direction at who should stay and who should go…

Before we get into the meat of this story — which players are keepers on the Edmonton Oilers and which are not — a word about this system of analysis:

One way to rate the play of an NHL player is to look at the number of scoring chances he helps to create at even strength as compared to the number of scoring chances against where he make some mistake.

This has the advantage over looking only at goals in a plus-minus system because goals are a relatively rare events in a hockey game. Even over a full season a player who has performed well might be out on the ice for not so many goals for and a fairly high number of goals against simply due to bad luck.

Scoring chances — hard shots on net from the slot — are goals that didn’t quite make it, often because the shots wasn’t quite good enough or the play didn’t flow kindly enough to allow for a goal to be scored. But a good scoring chance is as close to a goal as you’re going to get without scoring, yet far more numerous. there’s 35 or 40 in a game, as opposed to the five or six goals. Counting them up gives you far, far more to chew on when you’re trying to rate a player.

Hall of Fame coach Roger Neilson, who created this way of looking at hockey players in the 1970s, also hit on one other good idea, to use videotape to break down the play so that you only give plus marks to players who contribute to the scoring chance, and you only give minus marks to those players who make mistakes on chances against.

This eliminates a huge number of false positives and false negatives that create a lot of noise in any plus-minus system where you give a player a plus or a minus no matter if he had something to do with the play or not.

Many NHL teams have used and continue to use Neilson’s methods to rate their own players, though I know of not one NHL team that is yet using the system to rate the entire league. It would be a massive effort, but possibly fruitful in helping a GM better figure out who to try to target for trade or free agent signing.

As for the Oilers this year, these Neilson numbers, or individual scoring chance plus-minus numbers, are one place to start in evaluating players, though certainly the quality of a player’s competition has a massive impact on his Neilson number. A player’s ZoneStart percentage (the number of faceoffs he faces in the offensive zone as compared to the defensive zone) and to some extent the quality of his teammates also impacts his Neilson number, though the purpose of Neilson’s effort was to try to zero in on the player and eliminate to some extent the quality of teammate factor. The stat succeeds to some extent at that, certainly far more than other plus-minus numbers, where it can be difficult, if not impossible, to separate out quality of competition from quality of teammate in any player’s on-ice plus-minus numbers.

Keepers: 6

At each position on the Oilers, at least according to Neilson numbers, five players have separated themselves out as keepers: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at centre, who is +2.3 per game for scoring chances plus-minus, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, both +4.1, Justin Schultz, +0.3, and Corey Potter, +0.2.

It’s crucial to note that RNH, Hall and Eberle all face the toughest of opposing players, which makes them even more valuable. Schultz the Younger is a rookie, which makes his number more impressive, plus he faces decent competition. Potter has a good Neilson number for a defenceman, though that has to be balanced against him facing weak competition. Still, he does well against that weak competition, so what more do you want? Maybe a guy who hits people harder, but that’s not Potter’s game. He’s a decent puck mover, and that has some value on the bottom pairing.

You will notice that wingers tend to have higher plus-minus numbers than centres, and centres higher than defencemen in this system. This is simply because wingers have slightly more attack opportunity and much less defensive responsibility than centres, and centres have much more attack opportunity and slightly less defensive responsibility than defencemen.

So if a winger is +1.0 in a game (15 mins. ES time), he’s not getting the job done, especially if he’s out against weak competition. If a centre is +1.0, he getting close to where he should be, though +1.5 is clearly better and +2.0 is very good. Any defenceman who is even, creating as much as he gives up in his own end, is generally get the job done, though you might find a defenceman in negative plus-minus territory who is still getting the job done. His number isn’t so hot because he’s facing monster tough competition.

I also include Nail Yakupov in this keeper category, even though his +1.5 Neilson number isn’t great for a winger. But he’s just a rookie and his offensive tools are undeniable, as is his fighting spirit.

An enigmatic Russian? Hard to think of a player less enigmatic. This kid will go through a wall to win. That’s what I see so far.

Hemsky and Gagner are underwhelming because of the weaker quality of competition they have faced. Smid and Petry get some slack because they face the toughest of competition.

It wouldn’t be a travesty if the Oilers moved any of these players in order to acquire a superior player, someone who can join that very top group and play strong hockey against strong competition. But these players have all shown enough to hope they can make a real contribution to a winning team in Edmonton.

I put Teemu Hartikainen in this category, too, given his physical game and good Neilson number in a limited role.

Weak: 10

Defencemen Ryan Whitney, Mark Fistric and Theo Peckham, wingers Mike Brown, Ryan Jones, Lennart Petrell, Ryan Smyth, Ben Eager and centres Eric Belanger and Jerred Smithson all have poor Neilson numbers, indicating they don’t create enough on the attack or they give up too much in their own zone or both.

Smithson hasn’t played enough here to get a real grasp of his game, though the early returns aren’t promising. Jones missed a lot of time with injury and has had OK Neilson numbers the past two seasons. Brown and Fistric add some spine, Smyth and Petrell some hustle and OK-to-great PK work. So maybe there’s some argument to keep some of these players around.

But, remember, the Oilers are one of the worst teams in the NHL this season. They are that way for a reason: their players simply aren’t that good.

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